A familiar name is joining the Butler men’s basketball program.
Connor McCaffery, a former Iowa basketball player and the son of longtime Hawkeyes basketball coach Fran McCaffery, is joining coach Thad Matta’s staff as an assistant, with the program confirming the news Monday after it had been previously reported that McCaffery was expected to come aboard.
McCaffery replaces Greg Oden, the former No. 1 overall NBA draft pick who left after two seasons as an assistant coach to, according to the university, “focus on his business interests outside of coaching.”
REQUIRED READING: Former Hawkeye Connor McCaffery joins Butler men’s basketball coaching staff
Even with a famous last name in college basketball circles, McCaffery is perhaps best known today for his relationship with Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark, whose record-breaking Iowa career overlapped with his for three years.
McCaffery is making the short move to Butler after a stint as a team assistant with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers.
“Following a high-level playing career, Connor has had the opportunity to both contribute and learn alongside one of the best staffs in the NBA,” Matta said in a statement. “Those experiences will be very valuable to our staff. He obviously comes from a basketball family that I know very well and I’m excited for the impact he is going to have on our program both quickly and in the long run.”
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Who is Connor McCaffery?
McCaffery found his way to basketball naturally, as his father, Fran, has coached at the college level in some form since the early 1980s. Fran McCaffery has been Iowa’s head coach since 2010 after previous head-coaching stops at Siena (2005-10) and UNC Greensboro (1999-05).
After winning the Des Moines Register Boys Basketball Player of the Year award in 2017, the former three-star recruit joined his father with the Hawkeyes, for whom he played from 2017-23. In 2022-23, his final college season, he was an all-Big Ten honorable mention after averaging 6.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.
For his six-year career, McCaffery averaged 4.5 points, 3.2 assists and three rebounds per game while shooting 31.7% from 3-point range. Iowa won 111 games during his career, tying him with Jordan Bohannon for the most in program history. His career assist-to-turnover ratio (527 assists to 147 turnovers, or 3.59 assists to every turnover) is the second-best mark in NCAA history.
Months after his Iowa career wrapped up, McCaffery was hired by the Pacers as a team assistant, a role in which he helped run the scout team and assist with film review, among other tasks. The opportunity came about after McCaffery had a conversation with Iowa businessman Kevin Bannister, who had a connection to Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan.
“It’s kind of all-hands on deck, whatever you’re asked to do, be ready to do it,” he said to the Des Moines Register in May 2023. “It’s a way in. It’s an entry-level job. You’ve got to work hard and work your way up. That’s obviously what I want to do.”
After a season with the Pacers, he’ll get to remain in Indianapolis, where he’ll join a Butler program that has gone 32-33 in two seasons under Matta, a Butler graduate who previously coached at his alma mater from 2000-01 before moving on to Xavier and, after that, Ohio State.
The new opportunity will also keep McCaffery close to Clark, whom he began dating in April 2023.
Clark is finishing up her first WNBA regular season with the Indiana Fever. As a rookie, she’s averaging 19.5 points, 8.4 assists and 5.7 rebounds per game. She leads all WNBA players in assists and recently set the WNBA rookie scoring record, with 761 points in 39 games.
